Homebody by Orson Scott Card Page B

carpet. “Already clearing things out?”
    “Just my workspace,” he said. “I don’t do the hauling. Cheaper to have it done and get the junk out of my way.”
    “Well, I’m sure you can guess why I came by.”
    “Closing set?”
    “Since there’s no bank involved and you’re willing to trust the last title search, there was no reason for delay. Our lawyer fit you in tomorrow morning at nine, if that’s a good time.”
    “Fine with me.”
    “I mean, if that’s too early . . .”
    “I’m up at dawn most days,” he said. “Don’t like wasting daylight.”
    “Oh, right,” she said. “I guess it’ll be a while before they get the power hooked up.”
    “Duke Power came today,” said Don. “But I’m not using the house wiring so I still need daylight.”
    She nodded. Their business was done, but she was lingering. And truth to tell, he wasn’t all that eager for her to go. She kept looking at the house, not at him, and so he said the obvious thing. “Want to go inside?”
    “I don’t want to interrupt you if you’re busy.”
    “Done all I’m going to do today.” Which wasn’t true, exactly, so he corrected himself. “Except do a tour of the bathrooms, see which fixtures look to be usable maybe.”
    She grinned. “Can I come along on the tour?”
    “Not exactly what most women look forward to on their first date,” said Don. Then he wondered what she’d make of his joke. And then he wondered whether he was joking after all.
    “Don’t fool yourself,” she answered him. “Since women clean ninety percent of the bathrooms in America, we are endlessly fascinated with how the fixtures are working.”
    Don thought of how he had insisted that he was going to clean all the bathrooms in the house because no wife of his was going to have to kneel down and clean up any spots where maybe he splashed when he was peeing, but then one day he caught his wife down on her knees scrubbing the bathroom he had cleaned the night before. After that he gave up and left the job to her and just tried to aim straight. He figured it wasn’t that his wife liked doing the job, it’s that she felt like no man could be trusted to do it right. Never mind that Don was the meticulous one in the family. Must be a woman thing.
    He didn’t speak of any of this to Cindy, though. Nothing more pathetic than a divorced man who can’t stop talking about his ex-wife. Or was he a widower? When your ex-wife dies, doesthat count? Only if you still loved her, Don decided. Only if you grieved. And he was still too angry with her for that. The one he grieved for was his baby. Why didn’t they have a word for a father who’d lost his child?
    All this reflection only took a moment or two, but he realized that the hesitation had been obvious to Cindy and she was beginning to laugh off her request and excuse herself.
    “No, no,” he said. “I’ll be glad to take you on the grand tour of the plumbing.”
    She searched his face for a moment. He knew what she was looking for—some sign of interest on his part, some reassurance that his hesitation was not because he didn’t want to spend time with her. He had no idea what that sign would be or whether he gave it. He just turned toward the house and said “Come on” and when he got to the porch she was right behind him so whatever she was looking for she must have found it.
    Each of the downstairs apartments had its own bathroom, but the tubs were sludgy and filthy and the sinks had the streaking and wear that spoke of constant leaks. He’d leave the water off in those bathrooms, except maybe for the toilet in the north apartment, which would be the one most convenient to his workspace. He showed Cindy how there was no warping or staining of the floor around the toilet, so it wasn’t a leaker. “I’ll probably have to replace all the rubber parts in the tank, but that’s no big deal.”
    She nodded, but he could see that she didn’t much care for the brown gunk that lined